Cannes Lions: Winning ads were legitimate but it’s inappropriate to say where they ran
Savage
The boss of the Cannes Lions has issued his first comment on two award winning print campaigns which had questions raised about whether they had run.
According to Terry Savage, chairman of the Cannes Lions, the campaigns were “legitimate”. However, he declined to answer further questions about where they had run or if he was satisfied they had been client-commissioned, saying it was “not appropriate” to do so.
The email from Savage is the first official comment from the Cannes Lions organisers since Mumbrella began asking questions more than a fortnight ago.
Mumbrella was unable to find evidence of a Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney campaign for Panasonic in-car air conditioning and a DDB Sydney text-only ad for McDonald’s Australia having run locally. The campaigns won a silver and a bronze in the Press Lions category last month.
In follow-up questions, both agencies declined to say where the ads had run.
Panasonic’s media agency UM told Mumbrella it had not booked any ad space for the campaign. And Panasonic’s marketing boss was quoted as saying that the ad was not published in Australia and the brand had not booked the campaign.
A constant issue in international awards are “scam” ads, created in order to win advertising awards rather than to solve a business problem. Scam ads either do not run in media at all or are placed cheaply in a minor publication to reach minimum entry requirements.
According to Cannes policy on scam, work has to have been approved and paid for by the client and run in media space paid for by the client.
The response from Savage came after Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes posted an open letter, raising the questions.
Savage emailed on Friday that after Mumbrella had originally raised questions:
“We did however at that time instigate the required follow up and I can confirm we are satisfied that the entries do meet the required entry standards and in our view are legitimate”.
In response, Mumbrella asked where the ads ran. Savage responded:
“Not appropriate for me to divulge entry details, however we do have Media schedules and have had contact or conversations with all parties which have satisfied us that the entries were legitimate.”
Mumbrella asked: “That’s even in the light of the Australian client saying they had no knowledge of it? Did it run overseas? And can you give us a quote on the reason it’s inappropriate?”
Savage responded:
“The statement I have given is pretty clear and I have nothing further to add.”
Panasonic, Saatchi & Saatchi, McDonald’s and DDB are continuing to decline to disclose where their respective ads – Blissful Dog, Confused Dog and Windblown Dog; and, Darth Vader and Superman – ran.
One of the Saatchi & Saatchi award-winning ads
Mumbrella has also sought further comment from both McDonald’s and Panasonic, with McDonald’s sticking with its no comment policy relating to media schedules. At the time of posting Mumbrella had not heard back from Panasonic.
One of the DDB award-winning McDonald’s ads
Savage has agreed to speak further to Mumbrella when he reaches the Cannes Lions office in London this week.
Miranda Ward and Tim Burrowes
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Inappropriate my arse
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It’s pretty clear alright, clearly bollocks.
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this is so sketchy..given Saatchi and DDB networks probably drop around $250k each on cannes entries a year..savage is totally covering his arse so he doesnt get a call from the DDB’s Amir and Saatchi’s kevin lovemark roberts…
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Awesome stuff Mumbrella I was in Cannes and I couldn’t believe the level of shonky-ness in the press category this year
Keep pushing
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What a complete crock of shit. In one statement Savage has eliminated the credibility of Cannes. Surely no Australian agency with any honour will enter or attend again until this is fixed. Cannes is now reduced to a wankfest for connoisseurs of the mediocre.
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In light of both agencies refusing to publicly explain on the matter, would Mumbrella consider a media blackout on both?
Assuming you find the explanation from the festival unsatisfactory
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Aka “if we released the info it would prove that these most definitely are scam”.
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have posted this in the other thread but had no response. Didn’t I read a statement from McDs right at the beginning of this saying that the ads ran in Apri/May?
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Hi fleshpeddler,
Thanks for the comment, my apologies for not getting back to you sooner.
It was actually Saatchi and Saatchi who issued a statement saying the campaign ran in April/May however they have declined to disclose where the ads ran. Currently we have not been able to locate them or get an answer to this question.
Here’s the statement again:
“The Panasonic Nanoe TM technology for Automotive Airconditioners is one of the most innovative technologies used in the automotive industry. We (Saatchi & Saatchi) developed the dog print ads campaign as a project for Panasonic to demonstrate the benefit of fresher air through this technology in an engaging way that everyone can relate to. The print campaign ran in March and April.”
Cheers,
Miranda – Mumbrella
File this statement from Savage under ‘Dude, you’re making it worse’.
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@Activist. @fleshpeddler. It’s not like this is Scott Morrison’s silence on boats entering our waters in the interests of whatever.
These are ads. If they ran, they are now in the public domain. If a client or agency does not want to divulge a media schedule in the interests of keeping their spend confidential, they should at least be able to provide confirmation from the media outlet that ran the material. Keep at it mumbrella.
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Have a read of this in The Australian today on the issue: http://www.theaustralian.com.a.....6976800072
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I like Activist’s comment – how about not giving the agencies or clients involved any free plugs re campaign launches etc until they provide satisfactory answers.
With all due respect to Mumbrella, it’s not like you’d be accused on censorship etc – publishing details of new campaigns more like free publicity rather than hard news, I’d have through?
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Maybe Mumbrella could put up a reward for anyone who can find a published version of those ads …go big, as I think your money will be safe.
HI Miranda
thanks for your response. Yes, I know nothing about the Panasonic one but thought I remembered the CMO at McDonalds had made a statement.
I like the idea of High to run a reward. Surely somebody has seen one of these campaigns
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It would be very easy to track these ads down if they did run. Its print, we can hazard guesses at their demographic. Already its narrowed down to 3 printing publishers for each ad. If they say it ran in April/May, the tearsheets would be easy to find. Also I would guess that all the AM’s from those print publishers would know. Print publishers are notorious for scanning all competitors pages for their clients ads.
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It’s inappropriate to say where advertising was advertised?
Shurely shome mishtake?
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So I’ll admit I’m a bit of an outsider in all this, so perhaps Tim you could write something to explain it all to people like me. I have never worked for an advertising agency, I’m just a guy who works for the marketing department who sometimes has to deal with agencies, and I usually work with small ones because they charge less and do more.
So here’s the thing I do not understand about all of this. If ‘scam’ ads are such a huge problem in these awards, doesn’t that kind of prove what most of us have long suspected, that advertising awards are just a giant ego trip by big agency types?
Doesn’t this prove that award winning ads are not effective ads? And doesn’t that say that the sort of bug agency bosses who demand awards are a bit, well, dumb?
What am I missing here? Why does it make sense that an agency would do this? Can someone explain this? Please?
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Wow! That article in the Australian is breathtaking. Are they so threatened by Mumbrella that they are willing to be complicit in scam advertising – by two very large global advertisers – and say that Cannes is about ‘inspiration’, rather than rewarding the real hard work that goes into getting great work approved by all levels of bureaucracy. Calling Mumbrella ‘self important’ feels pretty ‘hypocritical’, Darren. Tim, at least they’ve stopped referring to you as an ‘events organiser’…
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@Confused by this. Best explanation so far is by admirer (comment 55) here
https://mumbrella.com.au/cannes-lions-scam-saatchi-ddb-panasonic-mcdonald-savage-tassone-lollback-236246
Local agency management has to put up with this as they have very little say on creative appointments if they are part of a global network.
Sometimes award-winning ads are effective, and sometimes crappy annoying ads are effective. There is no empirical evidence one is better than the other. We all want to do better work, but scam just muddies the waters.
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Cannes is a farce – as Savage’s response reveals.
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This is genius.
These print ads are now getting more exposure than most ads that actually run.
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Darren Davidson should refer to the rules of the Cannes festival that Tim helpfully reproduced in his original open letter.
The rules are clear, and entries that violate the rules should be disqualified, simple as that. And if a winning entry is questioned, it should be easy to prove its validity given it abided by the aforementioned rules when it was originally entered.
It’s not up to Darren Davidson to claim the rules should be breakable because it suits him (or his employer).
I don’t care if Cannes is a festival of ‘inspiration’ rather than celebrating real, commissioned client work – just change the rules accordingly so we’re all clear on it. Stop trying to have it both ways.
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A clever person once taught me life’s best rule. It is all bullshit before the but.
The winning ads are legit, BUT……
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@Duck
Exposure to the wrong target market = not effective exposure.
Kudos to the Mumbrella team though.
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If it turns out that both of these ads have run and met the requirements of Cannes, which has been mentioned, to what degree are Mumbrella liable for any loss of business resulting from these articles?
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As pointed out, Cannes is a multi million dollar business.
There is huge self interest to protect the franchise.
Agencies need their sham rankings to project creativity.
Not dissimilar to how financial rating agencies handed AAA scores to toxic products from banks.
Anyone say Lehman Bros?
Big holding companies need to win in numbers so clients don’t defect to smaller shops who don’t have the funds to play the game.
Global CCOs lobby to get their own people onto juries to block vote.
Everyone has a vested interest never to ask why the emperor is raving starkers.
Unfortunately the organizers have the final say. They do not have to explain squat to nobody.
Of course if the scams in questions were from chip shops and minor league creative consultancies/collectives, the organizers won’t be able to get off their soapboxes.
Cannes can’t afford to lose DDB or Saatchis.
And DDB can’t afford to lose Macs.
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Hi Tim, whenever you link to the Australian I am denied access by the paywall however I am not going to give that Tea Party rag my hard earned coin.
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….. so print advertising placed with the purpose of being seen and responded to by a target audience is now “confidential”……. Bollocks.
It is really, really simple you Important Ad Industry folks – tell us where and when did the adverts appear?.
I also can’t/won’t access the Oz, but whatever….If they are running something on this now, it is just another example of the MSM sadly trailing a week or so behind the “real” news outlets like Mumbrella.
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Just enter the Oz article URL into Google search or type in the article keywords to bring it up.
If you’re directed to News websites from a search engine it negates the paywall.
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I’ll wait for the “speak further”. That’ll be interesting….
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Can anyone shed some light on what role the client plays in this? Would they normally have to give the agency permission to submit an ad creative on their behalf that didn’t actually run?
If so, I think this reflects poorly on the client to allow this (in this instance, potentially McDonalds and Panasonic) – it’s deceptive and not in the spirit of true competition.
If the client didn’t give permission and the entries come under the microscope (and they didn’t run) , then the agency should be stepping forward to accept responsibility as it does tarnish the reputation of their client.
Ultimately, if the ads did run, I don’t see why it’s such a big deal for the agency/client to reveal one print title (so it can be crosschecked) that the ad ran in….
Very shady indeed…
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@Random Dude You definitely shouldn’t have to pay for journalism. It’s your right as an Australian to get it for free and screw anyone who tries to make a living selling their writing skills.
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@Jay
Let me help shed some light on how these ‘harmless’ client ‘approvals’ quickly snowball out of control.
By allowing these ‘one-offs’ to get by, clients unwittingly undermine their integrity and credibility.
How can the same person preach compliance to global brand grids and guidelines while allowing off-brand work thru? Remember, this isn’t for outdoor but print which has a whole volume dedicated to the dos and don’ts.
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Not sure about Panasonic, all senior heads of MNCs like McDonalds have to submit quarterly declarations that they have done nothing or are aware of any issue that may bring their company into disrepute or expose them to negative public backlash.
Like an unwanted pregnancy, nobody plans for this.
Everyone involved just wasn’t thinking about the consequences just because it seem like a good idea at the time.
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Miranda and Tim. I’d also be interested to know why the dog concept was considered legitimate if it had – as has been noted – been previously submitted by another agency for another brand. Hope you get the chance to speak further with Terry.
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If these ads ran it would be very easy to silence EVERYBODY by telling us where. It’s time to go to the media. Help us out here guys. Did anyone run these ads?
Because it’s not ‘just advertising’ Mr Davidson. It’s livelihoods. People work their rings off nights and weekends, on top of regular client work, to win awards so they can get pay rises and advance their careers. If others do that illegitimately it is grossly unfair. Same as drug cheats in sport. But I guess that’s only sport right? Not a federal election?
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Any more updates from Teflon Terry
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Any more updates from Teflon Terry?
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